Apple fanboy Marco Arment has said that he has extreme regrets for daring to post in his blog that Apple software had dropped down the toilet.
Arment is a web and iPhone software developer, writer, and podcaster and his comments seemed fair enough. While Apple hardware is the best it has been, the software has fallen behind, he said.
Armet’s comments included lines like: “ We now need to treat Apple’s OS and application releases with the same extreme scepticism and trepidation that conservative Windows IT departments employ.”
He said that he suspected the rapid decline of Apple’s software is a sign that marketing is too high a priority at Apple today. Having major new releases every year is clearly impossible for the engineering teams to keep up with while maintaining quality, he said.
This morning Arment posted that he regretted his original comment because he claimed his words had been chopped up and twisted by those who thought Apple was doomed.
“I started it with the headline and many poor word choices, which were overly harsh and extreme. I was being much nastier and more alarmist than I intended. I edited some words to be more fair and accurate, but it was too late. I can’t blame the opportunists for taking the bait that I hastily left for them,” Arment said.
However, Arment said that he felt embarrassment and guilt for criticising the company which had changed his life.
“Instead of what was intended to be constructive criticism of the most influential company in my life, I handed the press more poorly written fuel to hamfistedly stab Apple with my name and reputation behind it. And my name will be on that forever,” he wrote.
But what is interesting is that while Arment feels guilty, he has not retracted what he said about Apple software – simply that he regretted saying it. He complains that his comments pushed him into the limelight and gave ammunition to those who might wish the company harm.
